High-impact papers in the field of anesthesiology: a 10-year cross-sectional study

PURPOSE: This study was performed to evaluate trends in and provide future direction for anesthesiology education, research, and clinical practice. METHODS: We collected high-impact papers, ranking in the top 10% in the field of anesthesiology and published from 2011 to 2020, by the InCites tool based on the Web of Science Core Collection. We analyzed the trends, locations, distribution of subject categories, research organizations, collaborative networks, and subject terms of these papers. RESULTS: A total of 4,685 high-impact papers were included for analysis. The number of high-impact papers increased from 462 in 2011 to 520 in 2020. The paper with the highest value of category normalized citation impact (115.95) was published in Anesthesia and Analgesia in 2018. High-impact papers were mainly distributed in the subject categories of “Anesthesiology,” “Clinical Neurology,” “Neurosciences,” and “Medicine General Internal.” They were primarily cited in “Anesthesiology,” “Clinical Neurology,” “Neurosciences,” “Medicine General Internal,” and “Surgery.” Most of these high-impact papers came from the USA, UK, Canada, Germany, and Australia. The most productive institutions were the League of European Research Universities, Harvard University, University of Toronto, University of London, University of California System, and University Health Network Toronto. Research collaboration circles have been formed in the USA, UK, and Canada. Subject-term analysis indicated postoperative analgesia, chronic pain, and perioperative complications were high-interest topics, and COVID-19 became a new hot topic in 2020. CONCLUSIONS: The current study provides a historical view of high-impact papers in anesthesiology in the past ten years. High-impact papers were mostly from the USA. Postoperative analgesia, chronic pain, and perioperative complications have been hot topics, and COVID-19 became a new topic in 2020. These findings provide references for education, research, and clinical practice in the field of anesthesiology. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12630-022-02363-5.